The Long Hair Community - What's the diff between ashy and mousy cool hair tones???

Joliebaby · October 23rd, 2003, 07:35 AM

I've been playing with a color analysis toy, and it has ashy and mousy cool hair (and eye brow) tones in different categories. I have always thought ashy and mousy mean the same thing!!

What do you think?

Jollie

euphrasyne · October 23rd, 2003, 07:40 AM

mousy is brown, and ashy is grey.

Mop · October 23rd, 2003, 12:38 PM

Hum. I've always used them interchangeably, and my hair has both brown and grey tones to it. That would make me ashy-mousey, no?

Does the toy have swatches?

merryrose31 · October 23rd, 2003, 06:39 PM

I'm horrible at color analysis, but I think that "ashy" tones can extend into lighter shades of blonde than "mousy" I think that the term "mousy" refers to hair that is at least as dark as dark blonde, while some lighter shades of blonde can have an ash tone.

That brings up another question. What exactly is dishwater blonde? Is that the same as mousy?

And, what if you have both mousy and gold tones in your hair, as I do. Are you warm or cool?

laurel · October 23rd, 2003, 07:29 PM

Hmm. Well, since ash is a cool tone in general, I think it pretty much covers anything from light ash blonde to dark ash brown. When I think of "mousy" I think of a very specific color, a medium/light ash brown. Maybe that's just me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by merryrose31

And, what if you have both mousy and gold tones in your hair, as I do. Are you warm or cool?

I'm like that and I consider my hair's tone to be neutral [edited to add: in it's natural state], though in my opinion my skin looks better against cooler tones.

ladybug · October 23rd, 2003, 08:14 PM

Maybe it's just me, but I thought "mousy" was just a not-nice-way of saying "ashy" or "cool."

Kind of like "straw" or "dark" can be used instead of the dreaded "dishwater" when referring to blond.

I'd guess if your hair has ashy and gold tones, it would be neutral? Maybe?

Either way, it looks beautiful in your siggy!

Joliebaby · October 24th, 2003, 01:40 AM

The toy didn't have color swatches. It was listed as
golden
nutty, coppery
cool ash
cool mousy
cool blue

so it was very confusing.
My hair actually has warm tones, so maybe I would be in the nutty category eh? I felt like golden was too warm for my completely virgin hair. It has also gotten darker, looks quite dark in low/indoor lighting. It matched pretty closely a hair color swatch of "light brown" when I held it next to my roots, which to me indicated neutral, not ashy/cool or warm color...

I realized that when I last assessed my color I looked at pictured that were more than ten years old, since that was when I last had truly virgin hair. My hair has also gotten wavier with a few corkscrew ringlets in the underneath layers during my last bout of growing my hair (last 2-3 years)

I don't know, the color/ tone issue is almost as confusing as the waviness issue which I totally gave up

But I like to play with those kind of tests!

(And it gave me a result of autumn which I don't agree with

)

Jollie

merryrose31 · October 24th, 2003, 04:46 AM

From your picture, it looks like we might have similar coloring of skin and hair. Also, my hair has gotten wavier lately.

My hair matches a hair swatch called dark blonde. I've realized that hair stylists call a certain shade of hair dark blonde, although many lay people might call it light brown. Blonde seems to extend darker on their charts than in the mind of the public.

Madeleine · October 24th, 2003, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by merryrose31

I've realized that hair stylists call a certain shade of hair dark blonde, although many lay people might call it light brown. Blonde seems to extend darker on their charts than in the mind of the public.

Definitely. I called my natural colour light brown too until I actually compared it to a colour swatch at a salon.